our birthday cake tradition

We have a couple of simple traditions in our home when it comes to birthdays. One is that my children get to pick out what cake I make for them to celebrate their big day and two they get to choose what I make them for dinner.

Over the years, deciding on what birthday cake they wanted made was a simple process. They simply told me the shape of the cake and then how they wanted it decorated. Since the introduction of Pinterest, my cake decorating skills have been stretched to a whole new level!

My children now search my Pinterest Cake Board and pick out what cake they want made. I am not very good at cake decorating but I have become better at changing up cake designs so that I can still make it look nice and fun for my kids to enjoy. I know my limits! I haven't had a complaint yet so I must be doing alright!

This year Liberty wanted a rainbow in the clouds cake. It was a fun, bright cake that I had pinned on my board and I was able to change it and make it a little easier to create. I used different coloured lollies for the rainbow theme and I used a premade royal or white icing to cover the clouds. Very easy and so bright and fun!

I think it is pretty safe to say that Liberty was really happy with her cake. Ha ha! 

That smile. So gorgeous. Happy Birthday to my sweet cherub. We love you.

You can also check out my easy rainbow cake, Swimming pool cake and Freckle birthday cake.

parenting is the hardest job in the world

Parenting is the hardest job in the world.

It is also the most rewarding.

Before I became a parent, I had some pretty strong idea's about parenting. 

{There was no way my children were going to love any Disney characters, they would not be seen with runny snotty noses or wear mix matched clothes that clashed in colour and there was no way we would be spending hours in front of the television during our day. Oh yeah! I had it all planned out perfectly in my mind of how this parenting journey was going to unfold and surely I had it all under control!}

When I became a parent a lot of those idea's went out the window. 

{Hello seven children in nine years! Please, please my sweet cherub like a Disney character so I can buy it for you so then you will play quietly, never in a million years would I ever imagine myself walking through the loungeroom and instructing one of my children to wipe their nose on their t-shirt because I simply couldn't get to a tissue in time, never would I find myself arriving at the state of living where I really didn't care what my children wore at all and I was just happy as a parent that they were actually dressed! Also never would I ever find myself actually admitting in public that I used the TV as a babysitter to help me survive those early years with many young children.}

Now that I have been in the thick of parenting for 15 years, my idea's about parenting have changed.

{Over the years my parenting strategy and values have evolved. Just as my children have grown and developed, so have I as a parent. I still have very strong opinions about parenting but I have learned a valueable lesson...having an opinion and actually putting that opinion into practice are two very different things. Making your opinion real and liveable in a family situation where people can freely choose if they want to follow it or not is downright exhausting and takes great planning and effort. It requires being consistent and great patience. It requires sticking to your guns and also knowing when to let go. It may also require being personally humbled and acknowledging that your strong opinion is not what everybody else wants to hear or live. Finding that balance is one of the reasons why being a parent is the hardest job in the world.}

What have you changed your opinion about since becoming a parent? 

How to decorate your front door and home for Christmas

Sponsored by BIG W.

When decorating your home for Christmas, start at your front door and spread the Christmas cheer throughout your whole home. For me, I like my Christmas decorating to be simply and easy, yet fun and bright. I also love it to be child friendly and not too over the top. Here are some of my favourite ways I like to decorate my home for Christmas.

Start at your front door:

For many years I have decorated our front door. I purchased a bulk lot of cheap red material - normally about 6 metres in total, cut it length wise and then wrap it around my front door to make it look like a gift box. I take one piece of material and wrap it around the top and pull it under the bottom and then tie it in a bow. I then use the other piece and wrap it around the door width wise, link it with the first piece and then tie it in a bow on the other side of the door as well. So that you end up with a bow on each side of the door.

This year, as we ended up homeless several months ago, having a bright red bow on our door has far more meaning for us than previous years. Our house we are currently living in is truly a gift and a blessing to us. It is a nice reminder for us every day to be grateful and thankful. 

Once I then have a bow on each side of the door, I then add a few accessories to make it a little more cheerful. I often change it around over the Christmas period depending how festive our family is feeling. Below are some examples that I am using this year with products I picked up in BIG W:

If you want to keep your front door simple I love to use a large green wreath and to add a really cute Christmas decoration to it. I found these two birds in BIG W and think they look super cute on my front door. I am still considering going back and getting a few more so that I have nine silver birds all lined up in a row!

Decorate your walls:

I love to have a little fun with my cherubs decorating at least one wall in our home for the Christmas season. Often it is a very simple budget friendly craft that we put together. Below is a Christmas tree we made using cupcake cases and BluTack that we picked up in BIG W. We turned the cupcake cases inside out so you can see the pattern but you could also keep it white on the inside with the colour showing on the outside. Super easy!

One of the new ways we have decorated our home this year is by having some fun with Christmas tape. I used the tape I puchased from BIG W previously and we created a special Rudolph for the kids to admire. Very fun and very easy and you can make him look however you want. We added some Christmas ornaments and used a cupcake case for the nose. Fun!

Create small display area's around your home:

One of my favourite ways to decorate my home for Christmas is by having small display area's with a Christmas theme throughout my home. We love to celebrate the birth of Christ at Christmas time so we have several nativity sets in prominate places for our children and visitors to see.

This year I have added two more Christ focused displays to our home. I found these two ornaments below in BIG W and they were about $10 each. They look lovely displayed next to a flower arrangement or even on their own on book shelves or a table.

A very budget friendly way to decorate your home for Christmas is to buy Christmas themed tins. I love this set of 3 different size tins from BIG W. These were around $6 and not only are they great to display around your home but you can also fill them with chocolates or biscuits or candy canes and give them away as gifts! 

To me, Christmas decorating is personal. How you choose to decorate your home is up to you. There is no wrong way to go about it. Simply display what you love, what you can afford and what means Christmas to you. It is all about the little things...the little display areas, the little craft projects and the little memories that hold special meaning. 

To help you decorate your home for Christmas, BIG W has very generously given me a $100 BIG W Giftcard to share with a Seven Cherubs reader. For your chance to win the giftcard simply follow the rafflecopter instructions below:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good luck x

Party for a living with 'The Body Shop At Home'

Sponsored by The Body Shop.

More and more women I know are becoming entrepeneurs. They are staring up a business from home whilst raising their children and loving the freedom that being their own boss brings. I personally find it inspiring to see so many women giving small business a go and love watching them learn new skills, reach goals and have fun along the journey. If you are interested in working from home and starting a business, you might like to consider being a consultant with The Body Shop At Home. If the idea of partying for a living sounds like fun then this is a great opportunity for you!

If you are also like me and are a fan of The Body Shop products and ethical beauty brand then this is a wonderful opportunity to earn some extra cash whilst promoting products that you love. The Body Shop At Home allows you to create a flexible work from home beauty business and as a consultant you gain all the advantages of being in business for yourself but not by yourself. Plus as a bonus you get to pamper friends, family and customers with products you love from The Body Shop.

The Body Shop was originally created by Anita Roddick in 1976 when she started selling around 25 hand-mixed naturally inspired products in Brighton, England. The Body Shop Australia is a fully Australian owned company and through them several years ago I was personally able to attend a free business course that lead me to starting my blog. You can read about that experience and journey HERE.

So not only do I love The Body Shop products...like the Peppermint Foot Lotion, the varitey of Body Butters and especially the Lip Balms...I am also a big fan of how they help give women skills, support and confidence to own their own business while meeting the demands of family life.

So if you are thinking about earning a few extra dollars before Christmas and you like to party at home then click HERE to find out more. You can also read the success stories of other women to inspire your decision HERE. As a little extra inspiration I have some Body Shop products to give to a lucky Seven Cherubs reader. I have picked out a few lovely products that I am going to put together with some other fun items in a 'Body Shop Party Pack' for someone to win...I am not telling you what all the prizes are...although I will say the value will be at least $100 and it may involve glitter and a hat!

So if you could do with a little extra pampering and would love to win my Body Shop Party Pack giveaway then pop on over to the Body Shop Website HERE and come back and tell me what your favourite Body Shop Product is. Simply leave a comment below to enter. 

{Giveaway is open to Australian residents only and entries close on Saturday November 30th, 2013.

Make sure your email is attached to your comment profile. 

Winner will be notified by email and must contact me within 48 hours to claim prize.}

Giveaway Over

Congratulations to Hayley Bannister

a tribute to freckles

Dear Freckles, 

How I love thee so. 

Your sweet soft chocolate bud melts in my mouth and your crunchy top covered in hundreds and thousands make my tastebuds complete.

Long have we been friends. 

It was love at first bite.

We have shared many a tender moment together over books, movies and family nights. 

We have laughed, we have cried and we have even hung out for no reason at all.

We have crunched, we have munched and we have lunched.

Over the years you have always been there for me.

Your rainbow colours have cheered me up and made me smile.

Sadly, it is time for our relationship to end.

You have become too demanding, too desirous and too regular in my life.

We have been spending way too much time together and my family is jealous.

I will always remember your delicous taste, your wonderful texture and ability to always be there for me.

You have helped me through many a tough moment and you will always have a place in my heart.

Farewell, dear Freckle.

One day we may meet again.

I will miss your perfect crunch.

Until then...your number one fan...Naomi

Do you have a favourite treat that you are spending a little too much time with?

Are you a freckle fan?

Zoku Quick Pop Review + Giveaway

As a family who loves our icecream, iceblocks and popsicals, this awesome product was a must to review and experience first hand for our home and family. The Zoku Quick Pop Maker has quickly become a family favourite in our home and we love how speedily we can create healthy, fun popsicals to enjoy. Especially now that summer is heading our way! Here is how it works and what you need to know.

What you get:

The Zoku maker has a hard plastic base that is filled with liquid they also use in icecream makers. The machine I have has three holes or wells to create pops and you can purchase them in one and two hole varieties. The wells are made of non-stick cast aluminum so the pops are easy to remove once they are frozen. The machine is not too large to store in your freezer and not too heavy to carry either.

With your machine comes about six pop sticks that are made from plastic and have a specially grooved pattern to grip the popsicles. There are also drip catchers to attach to your popsicles, to help your cherubs make less mess and it comes with the 'Super Tool' screw to help get your pops out of the machine.

How it works:

You first have to freeze the base overnight. The instructions say to freeze for 24 hours to get it started. Once it's frozen solid, you insert one popsicle stick into each well, pour in your popsicle flavour base of choice, and wait for it to freeze. Each batch of pops takes generally 7 minutes to make. There are no cords, no electricity used and all you need is the machine and sticks to create them.

A special device called the 'Super Tool' screws onto the popsicle stick and helps to lift the frozen popsicles from the mould, which are otherwise difficult to remove by simple pulling. You then pull out your treat, add the drip guard and are ready to eat!

Need to know: 

One discovery I made is that you need to be careful to only pour your ingredients to the 'fill line' and not go over it. If you go over...it becomes very hard to get your pops out! The reason is that it becomes very hard for the Super Tool to screw down to lift them out.

When you first start creating your pops you do make a little mess. It takes practice to get the consistency right for your ingredients and to pour it neatly into the machine. I found that the extra mess around the outside was easy to remove once it had become completely frozen. I also found there wasn't too much mess on the inside from left over flavours and there wasn't the need to defrost the Zoku machine after every use.

When testing out the Zoku machine and the timing of making the popsicles I found if I was in the kitchen doing other cleaning etc. I could create nine different popsicles (three batches worth) before having to put it back in the freezer. If I put in one batch and then walked away to do other duties around my home I could only get two batches out of it before it needed freezing again. Each batch takes around 7 minutes to create but if you are using a milk based ingredients it takes a couple of minutes longer.

Also if you are wanting to create a layered look to your popsicles it takes longer to make because you need to wait for the first layer to freeze before adding the next ingredient on top. So it really doesn't take only 7 minutes to create a popsicle. It depends on what you want to create and the layers involved.

However, in saying that...this is the fastest option I have ever seen to create a pop treat for your family. There is no need to leave them for hours on end in the freezer, you simply pull out the Zoku machine and get creating!

One last thing I have to share is that there is no way I could get my Zoku pops to look like the images they have on the Zoku website. They are fancy! Mine are the homemade version and to be honest...it really doesn't matter because my kids don't care what they look like...only what they taste like!

We played around with a few pop flavours and recipes. We created orange juice with gummy bears, apple juice with grapes, milo with raspberries, milo with smarties and milo with blueberries. We also tried out apple juice with raspberries and tropcial juice with strawberries. My cherubs loved them all!

We also tested out using different flavours to make patterns such as apple and orange juice above, yoghurt with milo and mango with yoghurt. I love that I can take fruit, blend it up in the thermomix and then pour it into the Zoku machine and create fun, healthy pops for my cherubs. I can also have fun adding little surprises for them to enjoy as well. Like gummy bears!

The real reason for wanting to get a Zoku machine is of course because it allows you to know exactly what ingredients you are putting into your popsicles for your family, it is a healthy option and they are quick and easy to make. I was gifted this product from Finlee and Me and they stock a great range of Zoku Pops. I am also delighted to be involved with giving away 10 Zoku machines to 10 different families. If you would like to enter to win one...click HERE. Good luck x

Anyone else own a Zoku machine and how have you found it?